Relief for flyers! New method in the works to get domestic airlines to fly on time

Aviation regulator DGCA is mulling a new procedure to compute the on-time performance (OTP) of domestic carriers, which may be based on both arrival and departure timings of a flight, an official said Wednesday. 

The OTP of an airline is currently measured only on the basis of the timings of the departing flights. However, the mechanism has in the past come under question from certain quarters. 

"We are now thinking of introducing OTP on arrivals also and it will help us in addressing the grey areas," said the official. At present Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) publishes monthly on-time performance data of domestic airlines from four metro airports -- Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

The official also said that the DGCA is looking to rationalise block and slot times. "It has been noticed that block timings were at variance depending on city pairs between same type of aircraft operating flights of different airlines," the official said. 

Technically, block hours refer to the span of time from the switching on of the aircraft's engines to their switching off. An airline's OTP as well as facilities and financial compensation to an air passenger in case of delay are determined on the basis of block hours.